Election Night

Last night was not a good one for the Dems, but the election results weren't too surprising.  The GOP city council candidates seemed to be campaigning harder, and the MTD referendum meant higher turnout in SW Champaign precincts that tend to vote Republican.  Realistically, the winners were what most people would probably consider moderate, rather than hard right, and this may have gotten them some crossover votes.  I'm not sure that the strong response to some incidents involving the Champaign Police Department was helpful; some of the activists who addressed the city council didn't make a positive impression, and the rallies that Avery and Williams held apparently antagonized some other Dems.

By the time some IP folks convened at MOM Tuesday evening, I was already fairly sure that Feinen, Bruno, and Foster would win.  I ended up sitting next to a very pleasant guy who happened to be a Republican precinct committeman, and we ended up having an interesting conversation.  It was fun to talk about politics in terms of what worked and what didn't, rather than throwing inflammatory slogans around.  Assuming that all conservatives are white supremacists who hate poor people makes about as much sense as assuming that all liberals are potheads who never bathe.  One guy joked, "I want you to come over to the right...."  That probably won't happen, but the spectrum of political thought is very broad, and there's room for all kinds of ideas.  Karen Foster stopped by later, and she seemed very nice.

After that, I headed over to Brookens.  A couple of Dems looked grim and said that it was basically over.  One of them said that our candidates just hadn't run hard enough.  I asked if there was a problem with a couple of them being too polarizing, and was told that this hadn't really been a major issue.  Since people were just waiting for final results, I figured it'd be OK to go over and talk to some of the IP folks and Republicans I knew.  Isn't it normal for the parties to be polite to each other in Brookens, given that the campaigning is over at that point?  I was told not always.  Someone mentioned that people were getting together at a Champaign bar afterward, and that sounded fun.

It turned out that the second gathering wasn't an impromptu IP social event - it was a GOP victory party.  I almost left right away, but ended up talking to some people for a little while.  It was sort of interesting to hear different points of view.  For example, Karen Foster's brother told me that someone had posted an anonymous comment claiming that as a Republican, Karen wouldn't care about minorities or poor people.  He said that Karen had actually taken at-risk kids into her home when their parents couldn't or wouldn't care for them.  I figured that if this was the case, I could see where she might be impatient with activists whose idea of helping people was shouting at police and officials.  It turned out that the usual suspects had made yet another appearance at a Champaign City Council meeting that night.  They'd apparently walked in right after the meeting adjourned and tried to demand that the council reconvene.  So it looks like Karen has lots to look forward to.

BTW, the chair of the Champaign County GOP seemed to think a lot of Gordy and mentioned that he was frequently consulted about campaigns.  Gordy's posts here have been well-informed and level-headed, so I wasn't surprised to hear that.